In many fields of endeavor, it is important that an operator of complex machinery has a reliable visual feedback device. Typically, these feedback devices are display monitors and can be implemented using cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, LCD displays, plasma displays and the like. In the past, the images for these displays were typically generated by proprietary graphic processing units running proprietary image generation software.
Recently, in an effort to decrease costs and to ensure the availability of replacement parts, proprietary graphic processing units and display systems have been replaced with commercial off the shelf (COTS) graphic processing units (GPUs) to generate the images on the display. A drawback of the COTS GPUs is that the COTS GPUs produce less esthetically pleasing lines as compared to previous proprietary systems. This is because the COTS GPUs typically produce a line on a display screen by using a percent coverage calculation. That is, the center of the line is drawn at 100% intensity. On either side of the center of the line, the line is drawn at a lower intensity based on the percentage coverage of each outlying pixel, the intensity decreasing at some percent of intensity, such as 50% intensity. This continues the entire length of the line. The result is lines with relatively coarse anti-aliasing. What is needed is a better method and system for the anti-aliasing of lines and characters.